When John H. McConnell wrote the check and the Columbus Blue Jackets were born, the franchise promised many things.
It promised to usher the city into the big time as its first entrant in the four major professional sports. It promised to transform downtown, reinvigorating a major portion of the city. And it promised to give central Ohio a chance at sporting memories to last a lifetime.
One could hardly argue the first two have been successes beyond measure.
The only promise that failed to come true?
The promise of on-ice success.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but at least it was built. No one expected the Blue Jackets to enter the NHL and immediately become a power, but people certainly had to figure there would be more than two playoff appearances, two playoff game wins, and zero postseason series wins by 2017.
Instead of a civic treasure on the ice, the people of Columbus were given the Browns of hockey. The drafting was poor, development even worse, plans created and then abandoned. When the team did seem to have cornerstones to build around, they were squandered and sold. Was too much or too little asked of the would-be saviors? Could it be both?
But no matter. Now is not the time to dissect the stops and starts of previous years. They exist, and they are our collective frame of reference for the Columbus franchise.
Let us focus on what is happening now. The Blue Jackets have a young, talented roster largely built from within. They have a coach who has won a Stanley Cup and finished one stop from the top of the mountain another time. Records have been set – with ease. The potential for finishing with the best record in hockey is very real.
This is what it was supposed to be like.
It wasn’t supposed to take 16 seasons, but it did. Nothing about that can be changed, but this season, Columbus has delivered. From the 16-game winning streak to the recent push, this is what it was supposed to be like.
Each night, fans have been able to turn on the television, go to Nationwide Arena or trip to an opposing venue – something that seems to have been happening more and more regularly this season – with the belief that their team will show up and win. This is what it was supposed to be like.
Yesterday, the Blue Jackets clinched just the third playoff berth in franchise history, which will bring along with it at least one seven-game series in April. There’s a good chance Columbus will even have home-ice advantage. This is what it was supposed to be like.
Playoff hockey, of course, is as thrilling a show in sports as there is. It’s too simple to say the players put it all on the line – that happens in every sport’s postseason. But it feels more authentic, more tangible to say that when it comes to hockey. Putting it all on the line in hockey means diving in front of 90-mph slap shots, slamming similarly large humans into walls, and taking repeated whacks from sticks.
Each game is a war that requires everyone in uniform to be working in unison. Games are played until there is a winner, whether that requires the 60 minutes or 160. A millimeter’s difference, a bad bounce, a weird deflection can determine a team’s fate. It can be frantic, frenetic, gripping and hair-raising.
This is what it was supposed to be like.
There is no guarantee this year’s postseason run will be any different than the previous two in franchise history. Similarly, there’s nothing written in stone that this season has to be the start of something great. It might just be the great.
But for the first time in franchise history, Blue Jackets fans have a team that has given them reason to believe from beginning to end. It feels different. The electricity is there. The air is ripe with possibility. Over the next few weeks and months, memories could be made.
The final promise is coming true.
This is what it was supposed to be like.
